THE

LIBERTARIAN

ENTERPRISE

If I Catch You Talking to That Man Again ...

The national Democratic coalition as it's now recognized was largely
built by Franklin Roosevelt and his New York political guru, James
Aloysius Farley, in the 1930s -- then expanded and welded more
securely into place by various cryptosocialist "Great Society"
handouts and giveaways dreamed up by Roosevelt protege Lyndon Baines
Johnson and associates, 30 years later.

Though modern Republicans have grown increasingly less convincing as
a truly "smaller government" alternative, Democrats have long been
able to rely on the shorthand assumption that Republicans were the
party of wealthy white business owners and entrepreneurs -- the kind
of people who own stock portfolios and read the "Wall Street Journal" --
whereas any blue-collar American of identifiably ethnic stock
could be counted on to vote the straight Democratic ticket, no
questions asked.

All this was based on the notion that unrestrained capitalism was the
enemy of America's largely ethnic, blue-collar underclass, of course.
Since "the system" carefully husbanded all the real wealth in the
hands of the older white families -- since the bulk of workers and
their children could never dream of owning their own free-standing
homes, or stock portfolios or other substantial retirement assets ...
let alone starting and owning their own businesses, becoming
landlords in their own right, and so on -- the only hope of the
traditionally Democratic ethnic groups was an ever-larger bureaucracy
to busily tax and regulate away the wealth of the robber barons,
redistributing it to the poor (after deducting a considerable
handling charge) in the form of housing subsidies, food stamps, and a
hundred other "entitlements" and set-asides.

But over the past 40 years, something terrible has happened to these
reliable assumptions. Millions of American families -- including
families whose names end in vowels, or who don't look especially
white -- have grown considerably more wealthy (downright rich, by the
standards of the rest of the world).

More and more black and especially Hispanic Americans find themselves
making good livings in family businesses, and wondering why that
wealth should be taxed away to benefit those who have made less
healthy and productive life choices. Hispanics, especially, tend to
be more socially conservative, and thus not as comfortable a fit for
a Democratic party which has increasingly embraced the more extreme
reaches of man-hating feminism; bug-worshipping environmentalism; gay
and trans-gender empowerment; abortion as a handy method of birth
control (I'm all in favor of reproductive choice, but what ever
happened to the "rare" part of Bill Clinton's famous abortion
catch-phrase?) and other aberrant schemes of highly non-traditional
social engineering.

So why do Hispanics continue to vote solidly Democratic?

The answer is they don't -- at least not everywhere. In states like
Texas, where Republicans like George W. Bush have taken the trouble
to reach out to this constituency in its own language, Hispanics in
ever larger numbers have embraced Republican candidates preaching
lower taxes, less debilitating welfare schemes, less radical social
change, and the preservation of private wealth.

May 4, now-President Bush went even further, hosting the first-ever
White House celebration of the Mexican Cinco de Mayo holiday
(commemorating the Mexican victory over French forces at the battle
of Puebla), and conveying a portion of his remarks in Spanish.

Even more alarming to Democrats jealous of their shrinking
constituencies (leaving aside government bureaucrats, what
percentage of Americans still belong to labor unions?), President
Bush then made the traditional Mexican-American holiday the subject
of another first: a Spanish version of his weekly, Saturday morning
radio address.

Outraged and clearly on the defensive, Democrats announced Friday
that House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., and Rep. Silvestre
Reyes, D-Texas, would provide their party's response in Spanish, as
well.

But the topic of that Democratic address was to be not any obscure
episode out of Mexican history. No, instead Srs. Gephardt and Reyes
would address "the difference between Democratic and Republican
political agendas."

Good. This is precisely the topic to which traditionally Democratic
ethnic constituencies should now be paying close attention.

Anyone who examines the true, modern Democratic social and economic
agenda and finds it agreeable can continue to vote that way, of
course. But it benefits no ethnic group to be considered "permanently
locked in place," pulling a party lever for no better reason than
because granddad did. Only constituencies which are "in play" can
expect any politician to pay much ongoing heed to their interests.

And black and Hispanic Americans -- having gotten a good, first-hand
look at the wonders created by decades of the debilitating Democratic
welfare/police state -- are in a better position than many to pass
their own, independent judgment on the real-world results of "the
difference between the Democratic and Republican political agendas."